


Tight Wires Between Us

by everheartings



Series: A Rabbit in a Snare [1]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Multi, Oral Sex, Polyamory, Slice of Life, Threesome - F/M/M, Trichotillomania, jehan being an all around badass, warning for minor blood and hair pulling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-16
Updated: 2013-05-16
Packaged: 2017-12-12 02:07:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/805903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everheartings/pseuds/everheartings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jehan is as soft as any flower (but do not be deceived, he has his thorns too).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tight Wires Between Us

**Author's Note:**

> A big thanks to my beta, Amy (without you I would not have gotten through this, I swear). Also to Shira for listening to my constant bitching and answering all my questions. You two deserve all the awards.

Out of all the Amis, no one would peg Jehan as a fighter. He is their poet, their flower child; his hair grows long and his head is wreathed in flowers. His eyes hold stars and his skin holds freckles. He has a kind word for everyone, but blushes at one gifted to himself. He is soft and sweet, a summer peach in an orchard. He is brave, yes—Jehan is a revolutionary like the rest of them. He stares officers dead in the eyes when cuffs are hooked around his wrists and he’s pushed into a squad car. But his flowered jeans and flowered words speak of a softer nature. Bahorel is the one with busted-up nose and split lips; or perhaps Éponine, who can steal without remorse and break fingers with a smile. But not Jehan. Never Jehan. Jehan is sweet and soft and gentle at best, stubborn and reckless at his worst.

They forget that some flowers have thorns.

It is Courfeyrac who notices that Jehan isn’t at the meeting. It’s mentioned, briefly—“Seems our poet is missing today,” Bossuet says, only to be hushed by one of Enjolras’ _this-is-not-protest-talk_ glares. Courfeyrac doesn’t worry much—he’s too busy trying to design the flyers for their next rally, _and_ get the permits, _and_ make sure Grantaire doesn’t get _too_ drunk (last week he stayed late to call a cab and listen to the quiet murmurings about marble statues and sun gods).

It is late again when Courfeyrac leaves. He tucks his hands in his coat pockets and hurries through the empty streets. He knows a shortcut that will mean that he is out of the cold and into his bed that much faster. He turns the corner, but jerks to a stop when he hears shouts from the alley to his right.

“You little _fucking_ shit!” The sound of blows fills the air. Courfeyrac runs toward the noise—he may look dapper, but he’s always one to lend a hand—wishing that Bahorel was here and not drinking himself under the table with Grantaire. No matter how helpful Courfeyrac _wants_ to be, when it comes down to it, he’s absolute shit in a fight. It doesn’t stop him from trying. By the time he reaches the alley, the air’s grown still and silent. Two men stand beneath a flickering street light. Courfeyrac rushes to intervene, but his foot catches against something, nearly tripping him. He shakes it off, glancing down to see what it was.

A flower crown lies crushed against the pavement. Courfeyrac freezes at the sight (He _knows_ that flower crown, always perched upon ginger locks, rendering the wearer even softer than before). He looks back up into the alley, unwilling to believe his eyes.

Droplets of blood dot the ground like rain. The ragged huffs of breath are the only sounds. A tall man wipes at a cut on his face, one of the many that line his skin. And there is Jehan, shoulders heaving, sleeves rolled up, and blood running down the crook of his elbow. The switchblade in his hand seems out of place to Courfeyrac; he is used to thinking that Jehan’s hands are better fit for holding a pen than a sword. Still, there’s something to the way Jehan grasps it—like the blade is an extension to his own arm—that speaks of confidence that comes from practice (maybe it fits into this picture of Jehan after all). Jehan’s limbs tremble, but his eyes shine and his lips pull back over his teeth in a snarl.

“Would you like to continue, _monsieur_? Or are you are tired already?” Jehan spits out. In that moment, Jehan’s voice is nothing like Courfeyrac has ever heard before from their little poet. It belongs in Montparnasse’s mouth, not Jehan’s.

Courfeyrac takes a step forward to intervene, but the man seems to have had enough, turning away and disappearing down the alley way. Jehan lets out a stuttering laugh at the retreat, smearing blood across his face with a careless hand.

“That’s right, _Monsieur,”_ Jehan calls after the man, “Next time _think_ before you attack a stranger in the dark. Not every flower bends in the wind.”

Courfeyrac takes a step back, meaning to retreat quietly, to go home and sit beneath his blankets, to forget the feral light in Jehan’s eyes, to— _crunch._ Courfeyrac freezes, a shard of glass ground into the pavement beneath his foot. Jehan whips around, eyes alight. With the blood smeared across his face, the blue to his eyes, and the paleness of his skin, he is a living, breathing tricolor—Patria incarnate.

The snarl on Jehan’s face shifts to an expression of shock. “Courfeyrac?” His voice betrays him though, rough and ragged and deep. Courfeyrac swallows. He tries not to look at the shake to Jehan’s fingers, a high just begging to be released.

Courfeyrac stares at the little poet—no, something else, something feral, a wildcat consumed by words, a poet driven mad—unsure what to say. “I-I was… Well, you weren’t at the meeting, and I was walking home…” Courfeyrac gestures vaguely as he speaks. “I heard a shout.” As if that explains it all.

It is enough for Jehan.

A smile breaks across his face. “Oh, I had forgotten all about the meeting.” Jehan takes out a handkerchief and wipes the blood from his blade. He snaps it shut as he approaches Courfeyrac. “You see, I found the greatest little book shop—Oh, watch out, some fellow has puked his insides out there. I would say it was R, but R always has the common decency to puke in gutters when he can.” Jehan takes Courfeyrac by the elbow, guiding him out of the alley and down the street.

Jehan says nothing about the blood on his face, or the shake to his limbs, or the switchblade tucked in his pocket, so Courfeyrac doesn’t ask. He lets Jehan chatter (picking up and dropping threads of conversation in a way that makes sense only to Jehan) and take his hand—if Jehan’s fingers tremble, well, Courfeyrac attributes it to adrenaline, nothing more. Jehan’s other hand settles in its familiar place upon his head, left side, just behind his ear, burrowing in and out of the long strands of pale ginger hair. It is as if that dark, wild creature from the alley is gone. Jehan plants a kiss upon the other man’s cheek when they reach Courfeyrac’s apartment. As Jehan leaves, Courfeyrac tries not to think about the alleyway and what it says about the poet of the Amis.

Later that night, Courfeyrac finds Jehan smoking on the fire escape; he doesn’t say anything, just lets Jehan in. Someone has fixed him up the best they could—Joly maybe.

Jehan fiddles with the ends of his hair that tickle his shoulders. He looks up from beneath his lashes and bites his lip. Jehan is shy with Courfeyrac, the same way he is shy with Enjolras—as if he is afraid that they might break him. Perhaps that’s what he wants.

“I was wondering,” Jehan starts, his voice soft, “If I could spend the night.” Courfeyrac can see the tap to his feet, the way his eyes never seem to settle on a single spot. A blush may be dusted across Jehan’s cheeks, but Courfeyrac can see the burn in those blue eyes—Jehan is no faint hearted maiden. Courfeyrac thinks that Jehan would like to be broken.

He says yes. (And if Courfeyrac is surprised that Jehan likes his sex rough, the emotion is lost between the poetry being bitten into his skin and the fingers digging into his hips.)

Courfeyrac wakes to the sun filtering through his window. His eyes flutter open, a smile curling on his lips. He rolls over to say good morning to Jehan. His smile fades. The other side to his bed is empty, just mucked up sheets and strands of hair curled across a pillow.

The note on the counter says something about birds and poetry, but the missing packs of cigarettes say something else altogether.

The smell of smoke (the pack of cigarettes had been on the counter and Jehan had dropped his somewhere in the gutter, so he just _took them,_ doing his best to forget about the man who was going to wake up alone) hangs around Jehan, even though he sits by the sole open window in the Café Musain. His notebook is spread open before him, his pencil pouch carefully aligned beside it. He tucks a stray strand of hair behind his ear, chewing on his lip. His thoughts rest easy today, but his hands do not ( _set your hand back down, set it down, don’t let it stay there_ ). He reaches for his pen and bends over his notebook once more.

“Back at it again, I see.” Jehan glances up, faced not with one of the Amis, as he expected, but instead a wisp of a girl. His eyes flick to her brown apron and her name tag—an employee. He smiles and nods—this isn’t the first time someone’s brought up his frenzied poetry writing—then turns back to his notebook. However, it seems she’s not quite done because she seats herself in the chair next to his. She props her chin up on a hand, and stares at him.

 “You’re a member of that protest group, right?” she says, crinkling her nose at the smell of smoke (she hasn’t caught on that it’s from Jehan’s floral sweater, too wrapped up in his eyes). Jehan swallows and tries to look pleasant. (Perhaps she will be nice to talk to.) “You don’t act like the rest of them.” Jehan’s pen freezes on the paper. He turns to look at her, his smile tight. (Perhaps not.)

“How so?” He tries not to sound dangerous. Now is not the time to let the wildcat out. She laughs, the sound grating on Jehan’s ears and shooting down to the tips of his fingers.

“Well, just look at you,” she gestures up and down Jehan’s figure. She surely means to compare Jehan’s flowers and pastels, his poems and his prose, to the other Amis’s more conventional style (though Jehan could write pages on how Enjolras is set apart from everyone else, in both looks and in thoughts). “You could be a flower, if you wanted!” She laughs, and Jehan smiles, blushing, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

His fingers tap against the table top. He _wills_ this girl away with his mind and, for once, it seems the universe is in his favor. She gets called over to make a coffee. By the looks of the line, she will be stuck at the counter for quite some time. The tension eases out of Jehan’s shoulder when she leaves, his back curling into a slouch once more.

He pushes away her words in favor of his own—yet memories twist softly in the back of his mind. Time spent with Éponine or with no one at all. Glares and whispers that snaked down the hallways. Books that spent more time in the gutter than in his hands. High school was cruel to all the Amis and Jehan was no exception. His soft smile and cluttered words only served to set him farther apart from the crowd, his flowers a light to find him by.

But he hid them well, his scars. He buried them beneath poetry and laughter and the tumble of words that fell from his mouth. And every wound inflicted, then, now, and in the future, would only serve to make him stronger, to speak louder, to shine brighter (he just had to make it through the darkness).

Jehan finishes the last line to his poem when he sees the strands of hair curling across the page—or maybe he saw them before and merely brushed them aside. He pulls his hand away from his head, finding ginger hair looped around his fingers. He shakes them off, his other hand reaching up to skim underneath his hair and behind his ears. Checkup.

There, just behind his ear, is his ever present bald patch, the one he can never quite grow out past a few wispy baby hairs (they never last long). He’s pulled it down, nearly bare, months of work destroyed in minutes. He can feel the prickling bend of new hair pushing through his skin ( _pull me pull me_ ). He swallows, shoving the feeling away, fingers reluctantly moving down to his neck. His fingers brush past a newly forming bald patch, hidden beneath the rest of his hair. A chill spreads through him. He can feel how the strands of hair have been thinned out by his fingers. Pressure builds behind his eyes. He blinks it away. His other hand rises to fiddle with the hair on the top of his head. He wraps a strand around his index finger, pressing it to his thumb and pulling—

Damage control. Pulling hand pressed beneath his thigh, fingers curling into his jeans. Ignore the twitching of fingers and the prickling in his scalp. Ignore the sweet whisper of _just one more_. Don’t fall prey to the temptation, not again. (Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ why did he leave his tangle at home—everyone’s going to be able to see—a month of work _ruined_ —stop. Don’t think.)

He forces the sick feeling in his stomach down. His hand drops from his neck, unconsciously moving to touch the inside of his right wrist. Beneath the fabric of his cardigan, the word “intrepid” is spelled out in neat cursive, small flowers seeming to grow around the letters. A friend of Montparnasse’s had done it, a year or two ago. It is not alone.

There’s a tattoo of cherry blossoms wrapping around the back of Jehan’s neck and across his shoulders. It’s too delicate to be Montparnasse’s work; he likes thick lines and hard edges. He had done Jehan’s first tattoo: the “fuck you” curling across the ridge of a hip bone. There are others, quotes that wrap around his arms, flowers across his stomach, birds perched on the ridge of his collarbone. And there’s more sharp lined curses too, slotted quietly in between.

He hides them underneath pastel shirts and floral jumpers. One or two might peek out from time to time—a flash of a poem on his wrist, the harsh lines of an osprey’s outstretched wing peeking up from the skin between the bottom of his shirt and the top of his jeans when he reaches for a book on the top shelf of the Café’s communal bookcase—but he never speaks of them (Most of the Amis know about them, though Marius still is in the dark. Cosette, on the other hand, gladly worships the words spelled out on Jehan’s skin when Marius is away. Jehan doesn’t tell a soul).

Jehan packs his things and leaves the café without a word. He weaves in and out of the crowd as he enters the metro station, book bag slung over his shoulder. (Cosette lives in the heart of the city. If Jehan remembers correctly, Marius is on a business venture with Monsieur Valjean. Out of the country, won’t be back for a week. It’s about time Jehan paid Cosette another visit.)

It is dark when Jehan returns to _his_ side of the city. He takes the steps of the fire escape two at a time. Blood smears across the railing, the bandages wrapped around his fingers already soaked through. Blood drips from his nose and there is a new collection of bruises forming across his ribs.

He had gotten in a fight with a group of high school kids on his way back from Cosette’s. Something about their hoodies and caps had made Jehan’s lungs catch. He knew the type—walk tough, talk tough, nothing to back them up except for a few poorly placed fists. Quick learners though. The fact that they were burning books—Keats, Whitman, Voltaire—only served to seal their fate.

The fight had set off the shake in his limbs and the blood in his veins. The roar of words in his head had quieted, replaced by gasps of breaths ripped prematurely from lungs. _Hush_. The sweet crack of bone against bone. _Hush_. Blood spat against the dirt. _Hush._

It wasn’t enough.

So he goes to join Éponine and Montparnasse in their bed.

Jehan crouches on the landing in front of the window. He reaches into the pocket of his coat and pulls out a handful of pebbles he picked up on the way; he had liked the way they looked against the dirt, small and lonesome. He throws them against the glass of Éponine’s window. They hit with a quiet click.

Only after he resorts to the incessant tap of fingers does Éponine push open the window. “Back again? This is the third time since last Sunday,” she says as she helps him into her room. She holds him at arm’s length, her fingers anchor points against his skin. “One of these days I’ll leave you to bleed to death on the streets.”

She never would. Éponine has spent years opening her window for Jehan. She couldn’t stop letting him in if she tried. She thinks it’s odd the way they fit together; he with his treacherous words and his fights, she with her fickle heart and her petty crimes. Montparnasse slots nicely into place between them.

Jehan has always lived with words cluttering his head. His thoughts never stop. Most days he can shut them out, the lines of prose and verse that wrap around the corners of his mind, the suffering and the pain that lay hidden between the words; he can box them up and let them out later, when he is at his desk and can let them wash over him freely. His room is a nest of papers strewn about the floor, strands of hair curling in loops and peeking out from beneath the pages. He has books stacked perilously along the walls, threatening to topple with a single misplaced step. Some of R’s work lean against the haphazard stacks. It reflects the state of his mind on the days he cannot hold his thoughts back and they overflow, pouring past his teeth and out his nose, and coiling around his ribcage until he chokes on every word.

He does his best to hide it behind a smile and a laugh. Most everyone thinks that Jehan’s thoughts have drifted up among the clouds. Only Éponine knows, _has_ known since junior year of high school when he had run out of math and puked in a flower bush because the words _just_ _wouldn’t_ _stop_. She knows that his taste for blood and the steadiness of a switchblade in his hand comes from both the words in his head and the parents waiting for him back home (they never asked to have a poet for a son, never asked for his strange words and stranger habits. He stays away). Éponine is more than willing to give Jehan what he needs, and takes something from him in return.

It is Montparnasse who is best at fixing Jehan up, though Éponine is more than skilled. It’s just that Jehan finds the dark haired man’s long fingers calming, the way they skim against his skin to check for broken bones and how they wrap bandages tightly around his wrists, making his eyes flutter shut. If Éponine is a burning fire with her rage and her love, then Montparnasse is winter frost, his love carefully rationed out.

So Jehan rests his head against the back of the chair as Montparnasse hisses and hums beneath his breath, rustling through the first aid kit. Éponine stands behind Jehan, her fingers running across the line of his shoulders. She brushes her lips against his forehead. There is a hint of a smile curling on her lips. Her eyes meet Montparnasse’s, whose grin grows to match hers.

Montparnasse leans in, placing a kiss at the base of Jehan’s neck. His fingers skim down Jehan’s thighs as he settles himself between them. Jehan’s eyes follow, breath catching in his throat. Montparnasse lets his fingertips dig into Jehan’s legs. A gasp, breath released. When he leans into to bite Jehan’s neck, his lip ring bumps against the pale skin—Jehan throws back his head, trying to get away (playing the game), only to have Éponine’s fingers tangle in his hair and hold his neck taught. “Now, now,” she breathes, “hold still.” But she can see the _look_ in Jehan’s eyes (danger and fear and hate and frustration); tonight isn’t a good night for fingers pulling at his hair and she removes her hands, leaving Montparnasse’s tongue as a distraction to chase the dread away.

Jehan can hear the sound of her clothes hitting the floor—Éponine is always the first to shed them. They’d have to tie her down to stop her. (Jehan remembers that night. It was a good one.) He bites his lips to keep from moaning. And then Éponine’s hands are back, skimming down his cheeks, pulling back his head so she can place kisses against his skin. She moves to stand beside him, bending down and gently pulling his face closer to hers. She grazes her teeth across the curve of Jehan’s jaw, moving to place teasing kisses at the corner of his lips. She lets her fingers skim across his collarbone, dipping lower, beneath his shirt, before skittering back up to trace the line of his throat.

“Éponine, _please_ , just kiss me already. _Please_ ,” Jehan begs, an arm reaching to grab her hair and pull her face to his. He can feel her laughter against his lips. She kisses him once, biting his lip and teasing his mouth open with her tongue. She traces the line of his teeth, letting her tongue press against his once, twice, then draws it away. Jehan’s sighs against her lips.

She pulls back, moving to suck and bite at his neck. She slips a hand beneath Jehan’s shirt, fingers circling his nipples. They ghost across the raised peaks, darting from one to the other, tracing circles into his skin. She rolls one in her fingers, softly biting the skin just below Jehan’s ear, then nuzzles the curve of his neck. She skims her fingers across Jehan’s collarbone, then slides her hand back down beneath his shirt (her other hand is on her own breast, mirroring the other’s movements on her own skin, except when it darts down to press itself against the wet heat building between her legs).

Montparnasse is below, pushing up Jehan’s shirt to reveal inked skin. He trails his fingers across each one, lines rewritten in the press of his fingers. He leans in and traces the “fuck you” with his tongue, biting against the curve of Jehan’s hips. He lifts his head to admire his work and Jehan grabs a fistful of dark hair, pulling Montparnasse back against his skin— _black as a winter’s night, no stars to be found, blown out too far for light to shine—_

Montparnasse’s lips cut off that train of thought quick enough, dropping down teasingly to run across the curve of his cock through his jeans.

He burrows his head into the smooth expanse of Jehan’s stomach, dragging his lips up to Jehan’s navel. His tongue traces the clutter of words spiraled across Jehan’s skin (Plath, poetry seeping down into Jehan’s bones). Jehan groans, hips rolling and eyes fluttering shut as Éponine’s hands and Montparnasse’s lips tease their way across his skin.

He is so blown out, Éponine above and Montparnasse below, that Jehan almost doesn’t hear the quiet zip of his jeans being undone (but he feels it, _oh!_ How he _feels it_ dragging across his cock). He looks down and Montparnasse has his cock in hand, a thumb pressing lazy circles against the head. A choked sigh passes from between Jehan’s lips.

“Y-you better not ruin my jeans, Parnasse,” he gasps out, head lolling back into the cradle of Éponine’s hands. Montparnasse’s reply is to grip Jehan’s cock tighter, fingers trailing up the sides, feather-soft. He reaches the base, squeezes, and _strokes._ Jehan inhales sharply, struggling to keep his composure.

Montparnasse lowers his head to rest his lips against the tip of Jehan’s cock. He meets Jehan’s eyes, an absolutely _filthy_ smile spreading across his face. He speaks, his lips dragging over the head, lip ring rubbing against the sensitive skin.

“That’s all you can think of right now, your _fucking_ _jeans_?” He doesn’t give Jehan the chance to reply.

Montparnasse swallows Jehan down in one go. Jehan’s hands scrabble at the sides of his chair, knuckles turning white, his hips grinding against the wood. Montparnasse’s hands slide up to grip Jehan’s hips, his tongue curling around Jehan’s cock. He trails it up along the sides, jaw stretching wider as Jehan’s cock slides down his throat. (Éponine is somewhere in the background, teeth against the skin of his ear and nails scraping down his cheek, her gasps and moans fading into white noise.)

Jehan's hands bury themselves in Montparnasse’s hair, twisting and gripping and pulling Montparnasse closer. His hips thrust against the grip of Montparnasse’s hands, feet scrabbling to gain purchase so he can fuck Montparnasse’s mouth until he can’t think. The legs of his chair scrape against the floor as he struggles. His head snaps back, spine arching, Montparnasse’s name ( _Jesus, fucking—Parnasse—_ ) on his lips as he comes. Montparnasse swallows then too. The snap to Jehan’s hips grows weaker, and the grip against his hips grows softer.

Jehan falls back against the chair, one arm hanging loose at his side, the other tangled tightly in Montparnasse’s hair. Éponine’s head is buried in Jehan’s shoulder (this isn’t the first time she’s driven herself over the edge from just her fingers and their voices. She likes to watch her boys). Montparnasse pulls back slowly, gently sucking and kissing Jehan’s cock as the poet gains control of himself once again. Only when Jehan begins to run his shaking fingers through Montparnasse’s hair does he finally let Jehan’s cock fall from between his lips. He smiles as he wipes away some of the mess on his cheek with the palm of his hand.

“Still worried about you jeans?” he asks. And Jehan can’t help but laugh, one hand pulling Montparnasse up to meet his lips, the other moving to tug at the roots of Éponine’s hair. (They tumble to the bedroom, Jehan burying his face in the curve of Éponine’s thigh and pressing against the cage of Montparnasse’s arms. They worship the bumped curve of a spine, the sharp corner of a collarbone, the twin ridges of a pelvis. All but the feeling of each other’s bodies is forgotten.)

Though he fucks other people and sleeps in other beds, Jehan’s heart resides with them. His love for Éponine and Montparnasse is a burning feeling matched only by the high of a fight.

When he fights, a fire ignites in Jehan, one that sets his limbs shaking and his hands ready for blood. He feels alive. He does not think of what it means, this tremble to his limbs—he imagines that his bones must rattle in their joints, something Joly would say is impossible. (Fuck Joly.) Maybe the sound silences the words swirling in his head. Maybe not. (Joly doesn’t know about the words in Jehan’s head. He knows about the tattoos. So do Bossuet and Musichetta. They like to trace them with their tongues.)

Jehan does not find it strange how, when he cries, he is utterly still.

Éponine remarks on it, one day when she and Jehan are curled in bed—he hadn’t been in since the week prior, choosing instead to play Patria. “It’s funny,” she whispers into the smooth expanse of his neck, “how you shake like a leaf when you fight. Some might say you’re _scared_.” Her smile is mischievous as she looks up from beneath her lashes. Jehan pulls her face up to his, fingers tangling in her hair and his lips upon hers. They don’t talk much after that.

Montparnasse sees it too. He doesn’t speak about it much, preferring to use his words to cut and maim, or say nothing at all. But he knows what Jehan needs to hear, when it’s just after lunch and Jehan is perched in the corner of Montparnasse’s tattoo studio with eyes squeezed shut and hands pulling at the hair on the left side of his head (it doesn’t matter that there are already strands curling sweetly against his sweater, or that the tufts of hair behind his ear are not yet grown. They must go, they are _torturing_ him). He puts down his equipment and crouches in front of the tiny, huddled mess (a kitten, not a wildcat). Montparnasse wraps his hands around Jehan’s wrists and pulls them out of the tangled mess of ginger hair.

“ _Ma Petite Fleur,_ you feel and think too much,” he whispers as he presses his forehead against Jehan’s. And when Jehan refuses to hold his gaze, Montparnasse drags his lips across Jehan’s cheek, the lip ring catching against the curve of his jaw. Montparnasse rests his lips against Jehan’s ear and presses two pale wrists in his lap. His breath is warm against Jehan’s skin. Jehan throws his head back, twisting his arms to break Montparnasse’s grip— _he needs to pull, one more and then he’ll stop, it’s going to kill him_ —his chin is forced to still, gripped by Montparnasse’s fingers.

“Quit fidgeting, it’s fucking distracting,” Montparnasse snaps, good nature gone (or perhaps not, since one hand still clutches Jehan’s wrists to keep those fingers from pulling). Jehan does his best to not look Montparnasse the eyes, but he cannot close his ears. “You are stronger than this. Stronger than your mind. Don’t let it win.” The words are an uncharacteristic softness from Montparnasse. A final rough kiss pressed to Jehan’s forehead, and Montparnasse returns to cleaning.

And when Jehan picks himself up from his corner and wraps his arms around Montparnasse’s waist, he is met by a smile and a, “you’re fucking beautiful, _Ma Petite Fleur_.”

Neither Éponine nor Montparnasse mind bandaging up scrapes; Jehan thinks that they enjoy the taste of blood on his lips. And if the strands of hair that curl across every surface bother them, they make no sign.

Jehan shaves half his head on a whim. Éponine helps him with it—its four o’clock in the afternoon on a Sunday and their apartment (Jehan likes how that sounds, _their apartment,_ like he has a home to come back to and people to welcome him back) is sluggish in the sun. Montparnasse lies on the couch, long limbed and languid, sketching a design for his next tattoo. Jehan sits at his feet, scribbling poetry in the margins of his history text book. Éponine is curled in a chair, a cigarette between her lips and a magazine forgotten in her lap. Jehan taps his pencil against his lips, then speaks.

“Éponine?”

Her head lolls back, eyes sliding over to look at Jehan. “Hmm?” she hums, smoke curling from her nostrils (Jehan taught her that trick). Jehan shuts his textbook and shoves it off his lap.

“Can you cut my hair?” he asks. The scratch of Montparnasse’s pencil stops when he and Éponine catch each other’s gazes. Montparnasse returns to sketching, but his voice is soft as he speaks, careful in a way he is only with Éponine and Jehan.

“All of it?”

Jehan shakes his head. “Just…” he trails off, hand reaching up to tangle in his hair. He swallows. “Just half. The left side. Please.” His voice is hoarse. His lips mash together and he exhales through his nose in a way that means that his words are blending with his emotions and becoming barbed wire against his skin. Montparnasse nudges Jehan’s thigh with his feet. But still the frail, shaking hands knot into long hair, Jehan bending over to double. He rests his cheek against his knees, eyes shut. Éponine can just see the soft patches of skin peeking out from behind Jehan’s left ear. And the hair on his crown might be thinning too.

Maybe not a whim after all.

So she says, “Okay.”

And it is done.

The other side still runs ragged, roughly cut by Jehan’s own hands, the ends choppy and split. Sometimes he reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind his left ear, only to discover that there are none to be found. He doesn’t seem to miss it, though—the way Montparnasse wraps his fingers through the rest and jerks Jehan’s head sideways to bite the expanse of his neck, or how Éponine invites Jehan first into the kitchen to cut his hair and then second, into their bed, is pleasing enough.

The next day Jehan walks into Café Musain with bruises across his knuckles and blood on his lips. The angry red and black of a new tattoo cuts thick and sharp along the each of his thumbs: _Don’t pull._ He can’t tie his hair back anymore, so he settles for leaving the longer half down; two little braids peek out from behind his ear, threaded with ribbons. His old book bag is slung across his shoulder. His jeans are pink and his sweater is floral, his smile breathless. There is just a hint of the words in his veins, the tremble to his fingers a betrayal he does not care to hide (he is done with hiding).

He sits in his usual place and listens with his usual attentiveness. He laughs and blushes at the clutter of everyone’s words ( _your hair looks so nice_ ; _better be careful next time, Poet, learn where to place your punches_ ; _Oh! I didn’t know you were getting a new tattoo_ ). His tangle clicks quietly in his lap, providing a distraction for his hands. Grantaire opens his mouth to ask about it—before a single word passes from his lips, Éponine’s nails are digging into his arm, and his mouth snaps shut. Jehan doesn’t say anything (maybe he didn’t notice), but when Éponine stands next to him his hand reaches down and squeezes hers. There is no need for thank you.

(He comes into meetings bruised and bloody, dripping in flowers. Some days his hands find their way up to his hair. Some days they don’t. No one quite believes Jehan when he says he got into a fight. Except for Éponine. She just laughs.)

The day of the protest comes and the Amis are front and center, as always. All is going according to plan when in the midst of Enjolras’ speech a fight breaks out. Bahorel turns to join in, but Jehan is already there, kneeing one of the guys in the stomach, clawing the other in the face, eyes burning and teeth bared in a grin. The cops come to break it up and Jehan punches them too—minutes later he’s thrown against a squad car, handcuffs around his wrists, and a smile on his face. He recites poetry in the jail cell until Montparnasse comes to pick him up.

The next time the Amis see Jehan punch a cop to the ground, they are not surprised.

(Because even a flower has its thorns.)

**Author's Note:**

> Some of you may be wondering about the hair pulling. Jehan has trichotillomania, an impulse control disorder where one pulls out their hair (including eyelashes, eyebrows, scalp, etc) leading to noticeable bald patches.
> 
> The title comes from the poem "The Rabbit Catcher" by Sylvia Plath. Plath is my favorite poet, and I was looking through some of her poetry in hopes of finding a title. My beta Amy pointed out how that particular poem seemed to fit, and she helped me pick which line to use. (I highly recommend you all read the poem because Plath is so amazing.)


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